[Wenzhou Inspirational Entrepreneurship History] Entrepreneurship History

Since the 1980s, against the background of the rapid development of information technology, entrepreneurial activities have become active around the world. Below I will unravel the history of Wenzhou’s inspirational entrepreneurship for everyone, hoping to help you.

Part 1 of Wenzhou’s Inspiring Entrepreneurship History

Starting with a “one-sixth stall” and entering the US market

Jiang Guilan was born in 1963 and is not yet 30 years old. I was laid off when I arrived, so I decided to start a business. She persuaded her husband and got his support, borrowed 200,000 yuan from relatives and friends, and started a plastic processing factory in her home. At the beginning, they made simple plastic products such as washbasins and clothes hangers, which were sold in the local market.

In order to open up the market, Jiang Guilan went to Zhoushan, Yiwu and other places to promote her products alone. In 1995, Jiang Guilan rushed to the Canton Fair in search of a bigger market. At that time, only large companies participated in the Canton Fair, and small businesses had no chance to set up stalls. Jiang Guilan rushed to Guangzhou before the start of the Canton Fair and spent two or three days asking about stalls one by one. Finally, she got one-sixth of the stalls from a company at a cost of 40,000 yuan.

Although it opened up the road to foreign trade, due to the low technical content of the products and fierce competition at low prices, the business was once in trouble, but Jiang Guilan did not give up.

It wasn’t until the 2002 Canton Fair that Jiang Guilan finally got her chance.

At that time, a supplier of KFC in the United States approached Jiang Guilan and asked them to help produce plastic disposable tableware. Jiang Guilan's factory only had 13 machines. After the other party came to see the factory, he felt that the scale was too small and turned around and left.

Jiang Guilan said that in the plastics industry, the production of new products requires proofing, which is expensive. Generally, manufacturers have to charge proofing fees before opening molds. After negotiating with several manufacturers, the other party failed to reach an agreement due to the sampling fee, and finally found Jiang Guilan.

Jiang Guilan quickly seized this opportunity. She decided not to charge a proofing fee for now. Then, while trial-producing samples, he borrowed 3 million yuan from the bank to expand the factory, purchase machinery and equipment, and train employees in accordance with GMP standards for food production companies.

In the end, Jiang Guilan's company passed the KFC inspection and became the first Chinese company to produce tableware for the United States.

From OEM to deep market penetration, the transformation has ushered in a new leap

Following KFC, the American tableware giant SOLO also found Jiang Guilan. After that, Jiang Guilan began to segment the market. After on-site investigation, Jiang Guilan decided to specialize in the production of tableware.

By 2006, Fuling's annual export volume reached US$20 million, and it was already a decent export-oriented enterprise.

At that time, Jiang Guilan had two paths in front of her: one was to be content with the status quo and become an OEM factory and an OEM company; the other was to develop the international market on her own and establish her own brand in foreign markets, especially the United States. Sales network, build your own brand and cultural core.

Jiang Guilan knew that the latter path was full of risks and might lose all the customer resources accumulated over more than ten years, but she still firmly chose her own path to explore the international market. ?Because in my heart, I always have a dream, which is to let every end customer who has consumed our products remember that even a small straw carries Fuling’s unique humanistic imprint. ?

Jiang Guilan started a new journey of the company's development with the courage of a strong man to cut off his wrist. First of all, she hired outstanding sales talents in the industry with high salaries in the United States, and successively set up three sales companies. At the same time, she set up warehouses in New Jersey and Los Angeles in the United States and Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, and established a complete distribution system to enable domestically produced products. Products are sold directly to end customers.

During this process, the company’s old customers left one after another, and the company encountered unprecedented difficulties, but Jiang Guilan did not take a step back. She relies on her sales team to find new customer segments.

Withstand the pressure and persist in yourself. After the pain, Fuling finally ushered in new rewards. Fuling became a supplier to Subway 8 years ago, a supplier to Burger King 7 years ago, a supplier to Wendy's 5 years ago, and a supplier to McDonald's 4 years ago. Last year, Fuling won a KFC production order that had been lost for 10 years. So far, all five major fast food chain companies in the United States have become Fuling's customers.

?Always one step faster?

Ordinary plastic raw materials have greater environmental pressure. For this reason, Fuling specially established a new materials research institute in 2010, and worked with academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Together they established an academician workstation to engage in research on degradable materials, and achieved a number of research results, forming their own core technology. ?Green and environmental protection are the eternal themes of social development, and they are also the ultimate direction for Fuling Bingli to move forward. Jiang Guilan said, "I think after a few years, every product produced by Fuling will be labeled as green, degradable, and zero-pollution." ?

In recent years, although wages have increased by double digits every year, Fuling's labor costs have continued to decline. Fuling has established its own automation research institute to develop highly automated production lines based on the company's production processes, minimizing the number of workers on the production line and reducing labor costs.

90% of Fuling’s products are sold to the US market, and transportation costs are a huge burden. For this reason, Fuling selected straws with high transportation costs to be produced in the United States, and also selected highly automated machines independently developed.

Summarizing her entrepreneurial journey, Jiang Guilan said that she took one step faster than others. When others are doing domestic sales, she has already done export sales through a foreign trade company; when others have done export sales through a foreign trade company, she has established a sales company abroad; when others have established a sales company abroad, she has already built a factory abroad?

On November 4, 2015, Fuling was listed on NASDAQ in the United States. Jiang Guilan said that this is an important milestone in the company's development history, marking a gratifying step for the company to take advantage of the international capital market. She will seize the opportunity of the company's listing to lay out the global market, expand Fuling's territory, and welcome a new round of Transcend and soar.

Currently, Taizhou Fuling Plastic Co., Ltd. has 4 production bases, 1 production base under construction, 2 American branches, and 1 R&D center. It has been the export leader in Taizhou’s plastics industry for 12 consecutive years. enterprise, ranking among the top three among 9,162 peer enterprises nationwide. The company has successively won honors such as National High-tech Enterprise, National Contract-abiding and Credit-worthy Enterprise, and Zhejiang Province Green Enterprise.

We cannot predict the future, but we always follow the pulse of the times, set our direction from the rhythm of challenges, and look for encounters with chance. ?Jiang Guilan said.

Wenzhou Inspiring Entrepreneurship History Chapter 2

Dong Ming is a typical post-80s generation in Qiaokou District, Wuhan City. Her dream is to be a diving athlete. When she was 6 years old, Selected by the Hubei Provincial Diving Team. Just when she was full of longing for the future, she unfortunately fell to a high paraplegia during a training session in 1995 when she was 9 years old. She had no feeling below the neck, quadriplegia, and complete incontinence of urine and feces. The hospital issued critical illness notices three times?

However, the God of Death flinched again and again before Dong Ming's tenacious perseverance. Although she was completely unable to move her body for the first six years after the injury, lost her speech function for ten years, and was eventually forced to sit in a wheelchair, she was not depressed. She continued to live a brilliant life through self-rescue, self-reliance, and self-improvement. ?She wants to take advantage of this?unique and rare opportunity?to teach herself from elementary school courses to high school courses. Since she couldn't speak at the time and couldn't read the text aloud, she recited it silently in her mind over and over again. She couldn't hold the pen in her hand, so she wrote it down in her mind one stroke at a time. Many well-wishers were moved by her insistence on self-study and provided not only material support, but also spiritual encouragement. Despite this, Dong Ming, who comes from an ordinary family, still cannot afford expensive rehabilitation treatment. She did not blame others, but insisted on self-recovery with unimaginable perseverance. Finally, a miracle occurred six years after the injury. When her upper arm gradually gained feeling, she asked her parents to buy a second-hand computer, and with difficulty, she used her upper arm to move her forearm to practice typing, and tried to submit articles to newspapers and magazines. Not only was she able to support herself with manuscript fees, but she also had some savings. For this reason, she said with emotion: "My success stems from my persistence, but also from the care of my parents and society." ?

Persistent practice enabled her to slowly make some noise in 2005, so she came up with the idea of ??volunteering. Due to limited mobility, she worked as a teacher in a school for the deaf and mute with the help of her parents, volunteering to teach deaf and mute children how to speak. After a period of adaptation, she no longer needed help from her parents, but went to school alone in a wheelchair, and officially registered as a volunteer two years later. Since then, she has served as an anti-smoking ambassador, environmental protection volunteer, and counselor for civilized crossing of the road.

When doing these things, she is always grateful: "It is love that makes me feel the beauty of life, and as a disabled person, I can better appreciate the charm and significance of social care."

After studying high school courses by himself, Dong Ming also taught himself junior high school English and Japanese on the radio. In 2007, he was admitted to China Central Radio and Television University, majoring in social work, and also minored in psychology. And became a national second-level psychological counselor with outstanding results.

In 2008, after the devastating earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan, Dong Ming rocked his wheelchair and took to the streets with volunteers to mobilize blood donations for six consecutive days. When he saw the news on TV that the disaster area was in urgent need of professional psychological counseling volunteers, Dong Ming immediately took out his royalties and persuaded her parents to spend more than 10,000 yuan in treatment fees saved for her. The whole family went to the front line in the disaster area. .

In Shifang City, a 7-year-old boy lost his parents in the earthquake and was unwilling to say a word to anyone. After Dong Ming learned about this, he immediately found the little boy in a wheelchair and stayed with him as a big sister for 6 consecutive days. Finally, with his meticulous care, the little boy broke his silence.

Due to Dong Ming’s infection, his parents also became volunteers in the disaster area. His father was responsible for assisting in carrying supplies, and his mother changed dressings and scrubbed the bodies of the wounded. Dong Ming, with his strength and hard work, helped five children whose parents had died open their hearts and speak again, and more than 40 severely disabled people regained the courage to live?

Dong Ming's deeds in the disaster area were moved. Having touched countless people, she was hailed as the "Wheelchair Angel" by the media at home and abroad. Dong Ming also established the "Dong Ming Love Volunteer Team" and "Dong Ming Free Psychological Counseling Studio" at the right time. He used what he learned to invest all the monthly royalties earned into the studio to provide long-term services to the unemployed, laid-off and lovelorn people. Free psychological consultation.

Since the establishment of Dong Ming’s free psychological counseling studio, she has received more than 5,000 visitors, of which more than 600 visitors were moved by her love and joined Dong Ming’s loving volunteers. A team of volunteers, led by Dong Ming, will work together to help more people in need.

During the Beijing Olympics, Dong Ming was invited as a special reporter for CCTV and participated in the coverage of the Olympics. After the opening of the Paralympic Games, she was elected as a Paralympic volunteer and was active in the National Aquatics Center "Water Cube". Her deeds deeply moved the former President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samaranch and the current President Rogge, who both spoke highly of her: If everyone is as dedicated as Dong Ming, the Olympic Games will definitely draw more strength to participate. . ?

Dong Ming said optimistically: "Physically, I accept that I am a disabled person, but I don't want to admit that my life and mentality are also disabled." Sitting in a wheelchair is not only not a defect of mine, it is the best condition for me to be a volunteer. ?

In view of Dong Ming’s volunteer spirit of selfless dedication, she was selected as the third national moral model in 2011. In order to carry forward her volunteer spirit and establish and improve the social volunteer service system, in early 2012, Hubei Province and Wuhan City established the "Dong Ming Volunteer Service Corps" in Kou District, with 18 teams and 135 service stations. Currently, There are more than 50,000 registered community volunteers serving in the streets and alleys of Kou District all year round.

Dong Ming is known as the beautiful "Wheelchair Angel", but she has never stopped pursuing her beliefs. She said: "As long as I still have the ability to help others, I have no right to stand by and watch." Because in the process of loving others, we can realize the true meaning of life, and we can interpret life into a different kind of splendor through lifelong voluntary actions. ?

Part Three of Wenzhou’s Inspiring Entrepreneurship History

22-year-old Fu Shanwei is a standard college graduate born in the 1990s. While studying at school, he started his own business, doing on-campus express delivery and building a campus e-commerce website. After graduation, Fu Shanwei embarked on the entrepreneurial path again. Now look back and look at the graduate destinations of Fu Shanwei's roommates: one works in a bank, one does paperwork in a state-owned enterprise, one is preparing for the civil service exam at home, and one is working as a teacher in a vocational school. Fu Shanwei said that he does not regret choosing the path of entrepreneurship. The only thing he worries about is that he is young.

At that time, Fu Shanwei, who had just graduated, was very ambitious and ready to do something big. Unexpectedly, I encountered the first failure in my life. In just a few months, I was in debt of more than 200,000 yuan. After learning from the experience, he changed his strategy and expanded his education centers to three, enrolling more than 200 students.

Graduates majoring in auto repair

But he wants to engage in education

Fu Shanwei was born in 1990 in Yongchuan, Chongqing. Fu Shanwei's father is a skilled worker and his mother is retired at home. This is a typical working-class family. In 2010, 19-year-old Fu Shanwei enrolled in Yucai College of Southwest University. The college is located in Caojie Town, Hechuan. The relatively quiet environment created opportunities for Fu Shanwei to start his first business.

The experience of growing up in the factory yard left a deep impression on Fu Shanwei. ?When we were young, a group of people played in the yard. They had a good relationship and would share everything together. ?If parents have something to do, they can leave their children to a neighbor to take care of them, which is safe.

This experience provided the initial association for Fu Shanwei’s subsequent entrepreneurship. ?Children nowadays basically live in communities, and they don’t even know anyone in the community. Childhood companions are electronic products such as tablets and mobile phones. ?One of the purposes of ?Tianti Education? that he founded is to provide children with an environment where they can grow up together.

After graduating from high school, Fu Shanwei did a lot of part-time jobs for primary and secondary school students. This experience provided him with a lot of help. After entering college, Fu Shanwei studied auto repair. He chose his major because boys all like cars. ?Despite this, Fu Shanwei still cannot let go of his interest in education.

While in college, Fu Shanwei and his classmates from the Normal College organized summer training for primary and secondary schools. ?At that time, a parent-teacher meeting was held in Youyang, which had a great impact. ? At the meeting, Fu Shanwei had a sudden idea and asked the parents present who could not remember their children’s birthdays, but no one raised their hands. He then asked the students who had remembered their parents’ birthdays, and only a few people raised their hands, and they The reason why I remember my parents’ birthday is simply because the computer password is my parents’ birthday.

I was so impressed by this parent conference that I decided to set up an education center in the future so that children can learn to be grateful and develop a sense of responsibility. ?

With considerable profits, low industry barriers, a good feeling about education, and a small amount of funds occupied by the education and training industry, Fu Shanwei finally decided to start another business in the education and training industry.

Sudden changes occurred when he was full of ambitions

Parents and friends supported him through the difficulties

After graduating in 2013, Fu Shanwei decided to start a transformation and founded Tianti Education with two friends. ?. ?I was very confident at that time, and reporters came to interview me. I thought this was a good opportunity to promote it, but I didn’t expect that when reporters came to interview me, I encountered the first failure, and everyone was confused. ?

During his college years, Fu Shanwei worked in e-commerce and logistics. Both of his entrepreneurial ventures were very successful. I didn’t have to pay for tuition for one year during college. After graduation, I had my own savings. Hundreds of thousands. ?Only education and training has not been done seriously, so Fu Shanwei decided to return to his hometown Yongchuan and open an education center that can be hosted during the week and can be trained during holidays.

Tianti Education is located near a primary school in Yongchuan District. It has more than 800 square meters of facade and classroom space. It mainly provides off-campus tutoring from elementary school to high school. So being close to an elementary school becomes an advantage. But such advantages are also valued by other educational institutions. Fu Shanwei said that with the "Tianti" he founded, there are a total of four identical education and training institutions near this primary school.

Fierce competition is inevitable. Fu Shanwei said that he saw with his own eyes that one of the educational institutions was on the verge of bankruptcy, and he didn't know whether he would be the next one.

According to the plan, Fu Shanwei spent money on advertising and promotion. They booked a venue in the hotel that could accommodate 300 people to hold a speech, but the expected heated scene did not occur. There were only a few hundred people, and in the end, this lecture event with an investment of 50,000 yuan only attracted about 30 students.

This failure left Fu Shanwei with a debt of more than 200,000 yuan. When he was desperate, he had to ask his parents for help. But in fact, my parents didn’t even know that I was starting a business. They had very traditional ideas and always wanted me to find a stable job and work from 9 to 5. ?Fu Shanwei was very worried about being scolded by his parents.

After listening to Fu Shanwei’s idea, they felt it made sense and provided a loan. ?In addition, Fu Shanwei borrowed money everywhere, and ?borrowed all he could.

?What moved him the most was a friend. ?He was still in school and was from an ethnic minority. He lent me all his tuition fees. ?

The most difficult time

Meeting my current girlfriend

Looking back on the period of failure, Fu Shanwei said frankly: Without her, I would persevere. Not coming down. ?Fu Shanwei and his girlfriend have known each other for a long time. ?She is my sister's best friend. ?

It was during that period of depression that the two of them had more contact. As their understanding deepened, they fell in love. ?I couldn’t explain it myself, but we were together. ?

His girlfriend knew Fu Shanwei’s business situation and did not flinch at all. Instead, she always encouraged and accompanied him. In order to revitalize the situation, Fu Shanwei and his team went to the gates of various schools every day during school hours, handing out leaflets and shouting loudspeakers. Even on the hottest high temperature day in Chongqing, we persisted in publicity.

After a year, the effect is finally getting through. ?When we first started, we promoted it at the school gate, and parents didn’t even know what trusteeship was. ?After one year, parents will come around and ask us about the education center’s projects and fees. ?

Today, Fu Shanwei’s “Tianti Education” has three branches, which are located near Huilong Primary School, Honghe Primary School and Fenghuang Lake Primary School. *** has more than 200 students in long-term care. During the weekdays, it is mainly responsible for the students' meals, homework, lunch breaks, and training during holidays.

Not only that, Fu Shanwei also has a new idea, which is to create a child manager O2O model. This is very new in Yongchuan. It mainly solves the temporary needs of parents. If parents have a party, Or if something suddenly happens and you are unable to take care of your child, you can contact us online and send them to us for temporary care. Similar to online booking, offline service. ?

For college students born in the 1990s who have entrepreneurial ideas, Fu Shanwei advises them: Many of the ideas of the post-90s generation are very good, but few people put them into practice, so they must not only dare to think, but also dare to do it. Now that you have embarked on this path, there will be no regrets, only perseverance. I have become more mature now through entrepreneurship, so I have no regrets. ?For corporate brand communication, advertising is essential, but the most effective marketing is word-of-mouth marketing, especially for experiential consumption such as training.

Conclusion: As long as we can take advantage of it, defects will also become favorable conditions for creating opportunities. The key is what attitude and method we adopt. The hint that fate gives us may be exactly this: what kind of person you think you are will be what kind of person you become.